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Typeminer
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Typeminer »

Alkarii wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:54 pm Something odd that I noticed on this job:

Just north of Pine Bluff, within the Pine Bluff metropolitan area, is a town called White Hall. This town is home to the Pine Bluff Arsenal, where for a while a lot of chemical weapons were stockpiled, and later destroyed.

That isn't the weird part, by the way.

South of Pine Bluff is a town called Monticello, which has some really nice looking buildings. South of Monticello, where state highway 425 intersects with highway 172, there's another place called White Hall, but I can't find it on any map, and no mention of it anywhere, aside from the sign next to the road.
They moved it. You don't need to know why. :mrgreen:
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Dave
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Dave »

Alkarii wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:54 pm South of Pine Bluff is a town called Monticello, which has some really nice looking buildings. South of Monticello, where state highway 425 intersects with highway 172, there's another place called White Hall, but I can't find it on any map, and no mention of it anywhere, aside from the sign next to the road.
Interesting! Google Maps street view shows the signs on 425 before the intersection with 172, in both directions, so it's clearly not some sort of northbound-only reference to the other White Hall. The signs look quite official.

My best guess is that this is a historical place name... something which may date back to when this area was first settled. It's probably a local name rather than any sort of legally-incorporated locality. It might indicate that there used to be a larger community at this location than there is today. Since it's in a different county than the White Hall up at Pine Bluff there might not have been any potential for confusion until after the highway system was put in, back in the first half of the 20th century.

Speculation:. I see that there a large church complex at this intersection... looks like two church buildings with a large rectangular structure between them. "White Hall" suggests a large white building. Connection? Perhaps this intersection was informally named, decades ago, for its most obvious landmark - a church or meeting hall on this site? This is currently a Baptist church but might have been owned by a different denomination in the past (one which more usually refers to their place of worship as a hall rather than a church), or there might have been a grange or other sort of social meeting hall here instead of a church.

All of this is quite "iffy" of course. If the place was signed as "Þor's Corners" you'd at least have a good idea of who might have lived there, long ago.

I suppose that calling the country Roads department, or the state highway division might get you some answers... somebody there might remember the story.
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Catawampus
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Catawampus »

Alkarii wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:54 pm Something odd that I noticed on this job:

Just north of Pine Bluff, within the Pine Bluff metropolitan area, is a town called White Hall. This town is home to the Pine Bluff Arsenal, where for a while a lot of chemical weapons were stockpiled, and later destroyed.

That isn't the weird part, by the way.

South of Pine Bluff is a town called Monticello, which has some really nice looking buildings. South of Monticello, where state highway 425 intersects with highway 172, there's another place called White Hall, but I can't find it on any map, and no mention of it anywhere, aside from the sign next to the road.
Sometimes towns migrate. It can be a quick intentional thing, where a location becomes inhospitable for some reason and the population decides to just rebuild further down the road. Or it can be a gradual thing, where people keep building new buildings on one side of town and tearing down the old ones on the other and the whole town sort of creeps along.

I lived near one small town that had very gradually wandered over forty miles from where it had originally been founded. It left a trail of place names in its wake.
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Dave
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Dave »

Catawampus wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 10:52 am I lived near one small town that had very gradually wandered over forty miles from where it had originally been founded. It left a trail of place names in its wake.
I think I heard of that town... New New Neu Nova Νέος Image Comfy Crotch In Tree, right? I understand that the historical records in the town clerk's office are very impressive indeed.
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AnotherFairportfan
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Re: More Stuff

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

Dave wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 11:36 am
Catawampus wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 10:52 am I lived near one small town that had very gradually wandered over forty miles from where it had originally been founded. It left a trail of place names in its wake.
I think I heard of that town... New New Neu Nova Νέος Image Comfy Crotch In Tree, right? I understand that the historical records in the town clerk's office are very impressive indeed.
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Atomic
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Post by Atomic »

I'm particularly fond of Minnesota's Lake Moosemeseeyoulook!
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jwhouk
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Re: More Stuff

Post by jwhouk »

Catawampus wrote: Sun Oct 11, 2020 10:03 am Somebody who I knew used to work as a mailman during the Christmas season in the 1960's for a bit of extra money. He always hated being assigned to one particular neighbourhood, but not because the houses lacked proper address markers. The houses were fine. The problem was the envelopes.

Every street in that neighbourhood had the exact same name, but with a different description. So it was something like Jones St., Jones Ave., Jones Blvd., Jones Rd., and so on. And apparently a great number of people sending mail to the neighbourhood would just address it to "321 Jones" or whatever.
3rd Avenue, 3rd Street, 3rd Place, and 3rd Drive are all legit addresses here in Mesa. And they are also west and east.

Being a school bus driver in this city sometimes sucks.
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Alkarii »

It's my understanding that the second White Hall is an unincorporated community, so most of the addresses probably say they're in a different town. I used to live in Ico, and everyone there had a Sheridan address, and Sheridan is more than ten miles away from there.

Where I live now is a pair of unincorporated communities, East End and Landmark, and the addresses are a mix. There's also apparently another town called East End as well.
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Catawampus
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Catawampus »

Dave wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 11:36 am
Catawampus wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 10:52 am I lived near one small town that had very gradually wandered over forty miles from where it had originally been founded. It left a trail of place names in its wake.
I think I heard of that town... New New Neu Nova Νέος Image Comfy Crotch In Tree, right? I understand that the historical records in the town clerk's office are very impressive indeed.
Hard to tell; nobody's been brave enough to risk the curse or venture through the overly-intricate deathtraps to reach the ancient mystical Office of Clerkness.
Warrl
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Warrl »

Then there are places like Hell, California.

It apparently had inhabitants for less than 20 years. When the interstate went through, the decision was made that it would be less costly to buy the town and level it than to put in a freeway interchange there.
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AnotherFairportfan
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Post by AnotherFairportfan »

Here in Atlanta, we have a street named Boulevard. Just Boulevard.

And the same street number can appear up to four times on it.

It runs north-south, and it crosses whatever street is the boundary between NE/NW ad SE/SW.

And the other boundary runs up the middle of Boulevard.

So one side of the street is in the NE and SE quadrants, and the other side is NW and SW.

So a location on Boulevard can be in any one of the quadrants - and each quadrant has its own numbers, and numbers in one quadrant can be repeated in another - so you could had - oh, i don't know - 3507 Boulevard NW and 3507 Boulevard SE and they could be miles from each other.

It may be urban legend, but there's a story that at least one person died because the ambulance responded to the wrong place because somehow the quadrant name got misstated somewhere between the 911 call and the ambulance dispatcher.
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lake_wrangler
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Re: More Stuff

Post by lake_wrangler »

Dave wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 9:00 pm
lake_wrangler wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 8:49 pm I came home tonight, to find out that both mouse traps have been licked clean of peanut butter, yet the traps themselves are still untriggered!
Sounds as if you have an infestation of Mus ornithoptris (the North American hovering mouse).

Image

One thing you could try, is tying a couple of turns of twine around the trigger/bait platform, before baiting. If the mice chew on (or tug on) the twine to try to get to the bait caught under it, they'll be more likely to trigger the trap. Solid bait tied to the trigger has a similar benefit.

A friend of mine taught me the best way (he says) to make a standard Victor (or similar) rat trap more effective. First thing is to screw it down to a piece of 2x4 - this keeps the trap from flipping when it triggers. Second, put the trap in a narrow box (or wrap metal netting around it) so that there's only one direction that the rat can approach from... the baited end, where the bar will come crashing down.

Both of these tricks make it much harder for a rat to access the trap from a direction where it won't be hit if the trap triggers.
I have hot had time to make the suggested improvements to my Victor mouse traps (yes, it just so happened they were Victor traps...), and indeed I even stopped baiting and setting them, for a bit, until I had time to do so (why bother baiting and setting, if all I am doing is giving the mouse/mice a free meal, right?)

Then last night, while I was at my kitchen table, looking at some YouTube videos on my tablet, the mouse decided to peek out and roam around the kitchen counter and stove top. It did retreat to underneath the toaster oven, when I came by, but did not hide away into the walls. I even lifted the toaster oven twice, and the mouse just cowered there instead of scampering away. So I went and got my work gloves, using them as a physical barrier* (for some reason, I did not think of actually wearing the gloves, which would have probably been easier) and managed to cover the mouse with them. I puckered up the glove, with the mouse in it, and went outside, throwing the mouse into my backyard. (Not very far from the house, though... maybe I should have gone to the back of the yard to leave the mouse... I don't know.)

Now, I'll bait and set the traps again, to see if there are other mice, or if that was an isolated case, however unlikely that may be.




*The last time I tried to catch a rodent with my bare hands was back in 85, when I was working at a summer camp... there was a squirrel that was running around the storage room in the back of the kitchen. The head of maintenance guy was going after it with a hammer, but kept hitting where the squirrel had been... At one point, the squirrel started running up a set of shelves, and I reached out, with my hand, ahead of the squirrel, so that by the time I had reached the shelf, the squirrel had reached that spot. I caught the squirrel, which promptly bit me! (I know, right? The nerve of that squirrel...) As a reflex to it biting me, my hand squeezed... So much for the squirrel... it won't ever run around kitchen back rooms again... and I had to get a tetanus shot, just in case, because I couldn't remember when my last one had been.
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Catawampus
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Catawampus »

lake_wrangler wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:40 amI caught the squirrel, which promptly bit me! (I know, right? The nerve of that squirrel...) As a reflex to it biting me, my hand squeezed... So much for the squirrel... it won't ever run around kitchen back rooms again... and I had to get a tetanus shot, just in case, because I couldn't remember when my last one had been.
And since that day, on full moons you have to shave more frequently, and have a stronger than usual urge to eat pecans or climb trees?
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Dave
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Dave »

Catawampus wrote: Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:22 pm And since that day, on full moons you have to shave more frequently, and have a stronger than usual urge to eat pecans or climb trees?
Could be worse. Consider the plight of that poor English fellow traveling in northern Romania who was bitten by a werewolf and by a squirrel, on a hunting trip into the deep woods.

Now, every full moon, he has a completely irresistible urge to chase himself up a tree, then loudly scold himself and hurl acorns at his own head.
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lake_wrangler
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Re: More Stuff

Post by lake_wrangler »

Catawampus wrote: Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:22 pm
lake_wrangler wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:40 amI caught the squirrel, which promptly bit me! (I know, right? The nerve of that squirrel...) As a reflex to it biting me, my hand squeezed... So much for the squirrel... it won't ever run around kitchen back rooms again... and I had to get a tetanus shot, just in case, because I couldn't remember when my last one had been.
And since that day, on full moons you have to shave more frequently, and have a stronger than usual urge to eat pecans or climb trees?
SHHH! Not so loud... ;)
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Atomic
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Atomic »

I'm trying to remember that joke about the vegetarian vampire....
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Dave
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Dave »

Atomic wrote: Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:11 pm I'm trying to remember that joke about the vegetarian vampire....
There's a great Feghoot about that... a vampire on a distant planet where plants and animals have reversed roles (the plants are mobile and intelligent, the animals are sessile).

The vampire was a fearsome sap-sucker, of course... maybe evolved from a dodder plant.

Eventually, a bunch of the local villagers chased it down, armed with torches, sharp stones, and pointy sticks carved from the trunk of a convenient tree-beast.

They killed the vampire, driving a sharpened steak through its heartwood.
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lake_wrangler
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Re: More Stuff

Post by lake_wrangler »

This quote from my wallpaper changer made me laugh:
NEWS FLASH!!
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Typeminer
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Typeminer »

lake_wrangler wrote: Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:23 am
Catawampus wrote: Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:22 pm
lake_wrangler wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:40 amI caught the squirrel, which promptly bit me! (I know, right? The nerve of that squirrel...) As a reflex to it biting me, my hand squeezed... So much for the squirrel... it won't ever run around kitchen back rooms again... and I had to get a tetanus shot, just in case, because I couldn't remember when my last one had been.
And since that day, on full moons you have to shave more frequently, and have a stronger than usual urge to eat pecans or climb trees?
SHHH! Not so loud... ;)
Really enjoying this.

In his younger days, my dad was famously bitten by a squirrel he shot. It was only mostly dead when he picked it up. :mrgreen:

And I had a pet squirrel in the 80s. Sure enough, it bit me one time when i startled it awake. Doctor who gave me the tetanus shot thought it was funny as hell.

I was just as fond of peanuts and beer way before it bit me, I swear! :lol:
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Alkarii
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Re: More Stuff

Post by Alkarii »

I just paid off my car loan earlier today. Now I just gotta pay off the credit card, finish building my rifle that I started a couple years ago (as well as the one my brother and I started at the same time I started mine), and do that while helping my parents get by. My mom still hasn't been able to get a new job, unfortunately. You'd think, with 26 years of experience in data entry, she could land a job like that.
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